Benefit of stair running
bendyourkneekatie
Posts: 696 Member
Backstory: I'm a runner, I run, I run, I go on the elliptical, I run. I ran a trail marathon two weeks ago but was back to running again 3 days later (well I was on the elliptical 2 days later yes I have problems).
So on Tuesday I was at the gym and I'd done 5km on the treadmill and was half an hour into watching Ozark on the elliptical when my favourite crèche worker comes over to announce a disaster in the childcare room: a child with lice! Thank god not one of mine but the child in question can't be picked up for ages so we're outta there.
I'm feeling so deflated as I had an hour left of exercise and I need my fix. So we get home and I put Moana on and cover my kids' hair with conditioner, comb it through, chuck food at them, and run up and down our stairs for 33 minutes (up until Maui appears cos the 3 year old doesn't like him idk she's a wimp)
Oh. My. God. That 33 minutes was hard! My legs are still killing me 2 days later. Is this as awesome as I'm thinking?
TL;DR my question is: can running stairs help with my running? Should I incorporate, say, 10 minutes of stair running 3 or 4 times a week into my (already very active) schedule? Can it make me faster? Anyone have any experience or insight?
So on Tuesday I was at the gym and I'd done 5km on the treadmill and was half an hour into watching Ozark on the elliptical when my favourite crèche worker comes over to announce a disaster in the childcare room: a child with lice! Thank god not one of mine but the child in question can't be picked up for ages so we're outta there.
I'm feeling so deflated as I had an hour left of exercise and I need my fix. So we get home and I put Moana on and cover my kids' hair with conditioner, comb it through, chuck food at them, and run up and down our stairs for 33 minutes (up until Maui appears cos the 3 year old doesn't like him idk she's a wimp)
Oh. My. God. That 33 minutes was hard! My legs are still killing me 2 days later. Is this as awesome as I'm thinking?
TL;DR my question is: can running stairs help with my running? Should I incorporate, say, 10 minutes of stair running 3 or 4 times a week into my (already very active) schedule? Can it make me faster? Anyone have any experience or insight?
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Replies
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YES IT IS! pain is pleasure!0
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Running stairs is good, there's a reason it's a common thing. There's no need to go overboard, as it seems that is your tendency. 1/week is plenty, given your training schedule.2
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Running stairs is good. Running stairs too much... or running too much in general, is bad. 1x week is probably plenty.3
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It's a great exercise but consider it strength training rather than aerobic exercise. It will definitely make you faster, especially over anaerobic distances.0
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Running stairs (like hill repeats back in the day) is a high-intensity activity that will give you similar cardio training effects as HIIT.
The fact that your legs were sore is due to the fact that it was something different, not because it was “better”. You were using muscles in a different pattern, so you experienced soreness.
There can be a modest initial resistance training benefit to hill runnng at first—because your muscles have to adapt to this new load. However, it is not the same as, or a substitute for a more traditional weights routine.2 -
from personal experience, just be careful coming back down the stairs.
in college, we would run the stairs of some very tall building and then take the elevator back down and then run 'em again (and again).
The elevator ride back down was our rest period and pushing all of the buttons, to stop at every floor, was not allowed.3 -
Running stairs is good. Running stairs too much... or running too much in general, is bad. 1x week is probably plenty.
This is really bad information.
Just how much is too much? Is there a mileage amount that is too much?
Humans are really good at running. Not everyone runs fast or far but all humans can run.
Shalane Flanagan just won the NYC marathon. At a 5:36 pace at that. It's a world major. She's 36. She runs about 120 plus miles a week. Is that too much?
Please! Enough with the running is bad for you garbage.
The more you run, the better you will get at running.
It's great for your heart. It's even better for your lungs.
Running stairs or hills is great for runners. You should only do it as a workout once a week.
"Hills are speed work in disguise." Frank Shorter
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Just don't trip. I know I'd end up killing myself falling ,lol.1
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only6icecubes wrote: »Running stairs is good. Running stairs too much... or running too much in general, is bad. 1x week is probably plenty.
This is really bad information.
Just how much is too much? Is there a mileage amount that is too much?
Humans are really good at running. Not everyone runs fast or far but all humans can run.
Shalane Flanagan just won the NYC marathon. At a 5:36 pace at that. It's a world major. She's 36. She runs about 120 plus miles a week. Is that too much?
Please! Enough with the running is bad for you garbage.
The more you run, the better you will get at running.
It's great for your heart. It's even better for your lungs.
Running stairs or hills is great for runners. You should only do it as a workout once a week.
"Hills are speed work in disguise." Frank Shorter
OK. I'll sign up for a trail ultra tomorrow. That should be good for me.0 -
Running stairs (or using the StepMill) can help activate glute and hip muscles that running normally doesn't.0
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My PT started incorporating stair workouts into our schedule a couple of months back. Generally once a week and although there's obviously a lot of running up the stairs involved we also do other stuff as well during our half hour session (such delights as squat jumps up the stairs, crab crawls up and down, single leg squats on the bottom step). Yesterday we did out first hill sprint session since starting these stair workouts, and I may have been imagining it but I found those hill sprints a lot easier than I had before.0
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The classes at my gym incorporate a lot of stairs lunges and squats. I also do a weekly trail run that incorporates a lot of hills. As mentioned above, it activates a lot of muscles that don't normally get activated anyway.
Also, I've found when I'm doing Spartan Races or trail half marathons that I really like having the power that comes from doing that kind of training. I did one half this year that had a couple of sets of stairs at mile 9 and a good-sized hill at mile 12 (I'm not even making that up). I was able to motor up both.0 -
only6icecubes wrote: »Running stairs is good. Running stairs too much... or running too much in general, is bad. 1x week is probably plenty.
This is really bad information.
Just how much is too much? Is there a mileage amount that is too much?
Humans are really good at running. Not everyone runs fast or far but all humans can run.
Shalane Flanagan just won the NYC marathon. At a 5:36 pace at that. It's a world major. She's 36. She runs about 120 plus miles a week. Is that too much?
Please! Enough with the running is bad for you garbage.
The more you run, the better you will get at running.
It's great for your heart. It's even better for your lungs.
Running stairs or hills is great for runners. You should only do it as a workout once a week.
"Hills are speed work in disguise." Frank Shorter
OK. I'll sign up for a trail ultra tomorrow. That should be good for me.
Who is saying do something wildly outside your base? As far as I can see @only6icecubes was trying to point out that "too much" is subjective and almost impossible for us to judge for anyone other than ourselves.
I run between 400-700km a month right now, I run ultra distance basically every weekend; that is nowhere near approaching too much for me and how well I recover is a testament to that. From the tone of your post a trail ultra isn't in the cards for you atm so that level of training would likely not be for you right now. Your too much and my too much aren't the same because running isn't a sport for absolutism- we cannot determine anyone's limits but our own.
OP: If your prerogative is trail racing I would think it more prudent to do tech trail hill repeats rather than stairs. Nothing wrong with stair repeats but tech hills are going to be more practically applicable to your end game.2 -
400-700km a month? Wow. I admire that. I'm a functional fitness sort of dude and I like being fit enough to be ok at most things, even if it means I'm not great at anything in particular. It really hit me when I did my first trail half marathon in just over 2 hours. I didn't alter my normal exercise patterns much and was pretty happy with the results (particularly passing people on the hills and stairs).
My pride screwed with me a bit because I started near the front and finished pretty solid mid-pack. Then I realized that a lot of the people that passed me were probably faster and stronger because they were actual runners who trained for it. I was happy for them and happy for me after that.
2 -
400-700km a month? Wow. I admire that. I'm a functional fitness sort of dude and I like being fit enough to be ok at most things, even if it means I'm not great at anything in particular. It really hit me when I did my first trail half marathon in just over 2 hours. I didn't alter my normal exercise patterns much and was pretty happy with the results (particularly passing people on the hills and stairs).
My pride screwed with me a bit because I started near the front and finished pretty solid mid-pack. Then I realized that a lot of the people that passed me were probably faster and stronger because they were actual runners who trained for it. I was happy for them and happy for me after that.
Functional jack of all trades fitness is awesome- you'll survive the zombie apocalypse for sure
!
I'm not sure how the OP feels about racing but I train to run competitively. I only placed twice last year (on half and 50 miles), the planning against the coming season is more in depth this go around because I want a much higher success rate than that. I am very pro-Prefontaine in my feeling that "to give anything less than your best is to sacrifixe the gift". But you know, if the zombie apocalypse in any way involves the Olympic bar Imma die and I'm cool with that lol0 -
I'm feeling pretty good about the zombie apocalypse anyway. I have a few friends that are into that sort of thing and I know I can outrun them, which is really all I need to be able to do.
Inferring a bit from what the OP originally said, I'm guessing she doesn't necessarily run competitively in the sense of looking to place overall but does want to do well.
I like stairs for developing the strength in general and I've enjoyed that. But I agree with Jessica that one also needs to actually run hills because there are technical skills required, not to mentioned stabilizer muscles that need worked and balance to be developed. That means you need to run hills too.0 -
JessicaMcB wrote: »
I run between 400-700km a month right now,
How do you have time to do anything else?0 -
JessicaMcB wrote: »only6icecubes wrote: »Running stairs is good. Running stairs too much... or running too much in general, is bad. 1x week is probably plenty.
This is really bad information.
Just how much is too much? Is there a mileage amount that is too much?
Humans are really good at running. Not everyone runs fast or far but all humans can run.
Shalane Flanagan just won the NYC marathon. At a 5:36 pace at that. It's a world major. She's 36. She runs about 120 plus miles a week. Is that too much?
Please! Enough with the running is bad for you garbage.
The more you run, the better you will get at running.
It's great for your heart. It's even better for your lungs.
Running stairs or hills is great for runners. You should only do it as a workout once a week.
"Hills are speed work in disguise." Frank Shorter
OK. I'll sign up for a trail ultra tomorrow. That should be good for me.
Who is saying do something wildly outside your base? As far as I can see @only6icecubes was trying to point out that "too much" is subjective and almost impossible for us to judge for anyone other than ourselves.
I run between 400-700km a month right now, I run ultra distance basically every weekend; that is nowhere near approaching too much for me and how well I recover is a testament to that. From the tone of your post a trail ultra isn't in the cards for you atm so that level of training would likely not be for you right now. Your too much and my too much aren't the same because running isn't a sport for absolutism- we cannot determine anyone's limits but our own.
OP: If your prerogative is trail racing I would think it more prudent to do tech trail hill repeats rather than stairs. Nothing wrong with stair repeats but tech hills are going to be more practically applicable to your end game.
I am with you that too much is subjective, but I also hope you realize, there's not many people on the planet who can recover from that kind of volume. For the vast majority of people, "too much running" leads to injury. Even if too much is someone else's moderate volume.2 -
JessicaMcB wrote: »
I run between 400-700km a month right now,
How do you have time to do anything else?
When you run at 3AM all things are possible? lol. I manage to still raise my kids and spend time with my husband when he isn't on the road- you fund your priorities.
@rybo absolutely, my recovery level is the exception not the rule, it just spoke well to my point that running volume is highly personal. I expect exactly zero people to want to run like I do 0 -
only6icecubes wrote: »
This is really bad information.
Please! Enough with the running is bad for you garbage.
The more you run, the better you will get at running.
It's great for your heart. It's even better for your lungs.
Running stairs or hills is great for runners. You should only do it as a workout once a week.
"Hills are speed work in disguise." Frank Shorter
Yes. It is. But that didn't stop you from posting it.1 -
I love these running mileage debates! They're almost as inflammatory as the Xfit ones.
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